


I'm Supposed To Love You

by Merkey666



Series: Fourth of Shit [3]
Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Heartbreak, I promise, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Realizations, Summer of Like, Warped Tour 2005, it's good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 18:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11407659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkey666/pseuds/Merkey666
Summary: Mikey ends things at Warped Tour, and Pete has a long strand of realizations after that.Mainly that Mikey was in love with him. Also that he might have been in love with Mikey too.





	I'm Supposed To Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Why can't I ever write anything with a happy ending????????????????
> 
> kill me

“Mikey…. Fuck- oh God,” Pete whined, leaning down and pressing his forehead onto Mikey’s shoulder. Sweat dribbled down his forehead as his back arched in pleasure. Mikey was gasping and holding onto Pete like his life depended on it, digging his nails into his back until marks were left behind. Their intertwined bodies worked against each other, sweat and other things pouring onto the mattress from the both of them. The summer light poured onto them from the bus window, threatening them with the quickly arising arrival of August.

In one last burst burst of fire and emotions, Pete moved even closer and choked out a few words, his brain too fuzzy to do much else. “I- fuck- I love you.” Mikey let out a noise between a sob and a moan and let his body shake as they moved together. Pete just wasn’t making it any easier.

~

“We need to stop seeing each other,” Mikey whispered as he pulled on his pants. The other boy paused for a moment, watching the back of his head to see if he was serious. Neither said a word for a moment just to test each other. Pete nuzzled his face in Mikey’s neck and chuckled. 

“Sure, okay,” he murmured, biting down on an already purple mark. Mikey lolled his head back and let his breath slip through his teeth. For a moment he debated staying until it was time to play and /then/ finally saying a formal goodbye, but this was the less painful way to do things.

“I- no, really, Pete. We need to stop,” Mikey intoned. Pete pulled back as his smile dripped off his face like the sweat shed in the bed. He sat back on his knees and watched Mikey button up his jeans. Both of them were quiet until Mikey started pulling on his shoes and Pete had gotten the fact that Mikey was dead serious. 

“Is this because I said I love you? Oh god, Mikey no! That wasn’t a-“ Mikey pulled on his other converse and got up without tying it. “That wasn’t an 'I love you’ I love you, that was a middle of sex I love you!” He tried to grab hold of Mikey but Mikey pushed his hand off. Pete began to panic as Mikey left the room and walked towards the front of the bus. He ran a hand through his hair, remembering how many times he’d promised himself he wouldn’t get like this when the time came. He just hadn’t expected it- he still should’ve had a few more weeks left of tour. 

He ran after Mikey before he could leave the bus and put a delicate hand on the taller boy’s shoulder. He froze for a moment without turning. 

“I don’t love you! Listen to me,” he turned Mikey around and set a hand on his cheek. Mikey desperately tried to hold back tears and Pete wasn’t exactly telling him what he wanted to hear. Pete looked Mikey dead in the eyes. “I don’t love you.”

Mikey pushed him away and nearly threw himself off of the bus, leaving a cloud of dirt swirling after him. Pete stood in the doorway for a few moments, not knowing how to feel at all. Something had gone wrong, a flaw in a plan that was never bulletproof. He’d never given Mikey the time he deserved, to explain how that summer was supposed to work. He’d taken him along with him without knowing where they were going. And now Pete was the one left behind. How had that happened? He wasn’t /supposed/ to love Mikey, but after all that time, how could he not? He began to realize that maybe it was the other way around, that a summer fling had caught him by surprise and now he was in too deep to pull himself out of the hole he dug all by himself. 

Before he could think, he found himself digging through drawers until he found a pad of paper and a pen. He slam dunked himself onto a seat and began to write before the thoughts even came to mind. He only got to reading what he’d written when droplets began to appear on the notepad along with his manic handwriting.

He sat back with the paper in his hand and read aloud, “it’s a strange way of saying that I know I’m supposed to love you. I’m supposed to love you…” he trailed off, staring at the paper but no longer seeing the words. It had been that way all summer. Emotions happened, then pen, paper. Like a circle.

“That’s deep, Pete,” Patrick scoffed from the kitchen. Pete jumped and bowled around to look at Patrick, whom he hadn’t seen enter. 

“You scared the shit out of me!” he yelped. Patrick shrugged and grabbed a mug of coffee.

“I said hi to you when I walked in, not my fault you didn’t hear me,” he paused and pointed towards the piece of paper. “That about Mikey?” Pete gulped and slammed himself back against the chair and crossed his arms immaturely. 

“Maybe. Why?” Patrick laughed at him like he was a little kid throwing a tantrum. He waddled over to the fridge and pulled it open. 

“I would say no reason to appeal to your conscience, but it’s really because I saw Mikey crying on his way to his bus and I know for a fact he was here last night. I don’t know what you did to him, but Frank’s gonna have your ass,” he giggled. Pete paled a little and turned back around to look out the dusty window. It wasn't for a long while that he realized he hadn't done anything to Mikey, and that it was the other way around. He opened his mouth to shout back at Patrick, but he was gone already. 

The clock ticked by far too quickly, like a train with no brakes, and he was heading straight for a brick wall. The show he's been fretting about being late to wasn't all that far away and he'd better get his shit together or he would be late. It surprised him that Patrick hadn't dropped by to remind him, but then again he probably had when Pete was spaced out. He took one more look at his messy paper and pulled himself up. If only he could do that mentally as well. 

Dressing as though he were to attend a funeral, he prepared himself for the show. When he returned to the main room, his friends were pleasantly waiting for him. Joe strummed a chord as a welcome and Patrick threw a sock at him. 

“Ready?” Andy asked, sticking his drumsticks in his pocket and flipping his hair nonchalantly. Pete nodded, twirling a pic in between his fingers. Patrick pretended not to notice. Time ticked by as they departed from the bus and were immediately ushered into a golf cart, to which they were then driven to the stage. 

The stage crew was not yet done setting up, but the crowd was sure done waiting. Kids writhed around like pigs awaiting the slaughter, jumping up and down nervously and screaming every time someone went on stage. Pete jumped around awkwardly, putting off the weight on his shoulders that he was slowly coming to terms with. Coming to terms that it wasn’t coming from the weight of the bass that was strung on him like fairy lights.

Their announcer went on, riling up the crowd more than necessary, shouting through the mics as the last of the equipment was prepared. He set up the mic and walked off, winking at the band as they cracked their necks and prepared themselves. It wasn’t fair that they were just expected to go on stage with no questions asked, no one caring enough to know. Pete grabbed a sharpie off of the table next to him and flung the cap over his shoulder. 

Patrick clapped a hand on his shoulder, and a chain of events followed. The M he was writing smudged, and he gave up on that idea. He shook his head and rashly wrote motherfucker on his arm instead of whatever sappiness he was internalizing. Only then did he realize Patrick nudged him to usher him on stage. He dropped the pen and jogged on stage, clutching his bass tightly.

It was the first time in a long while that he looked out over the crowd, the fans, the smiles, and not seen Mikey’s face glittering back like the stars were hung by Pete himself. The first time that he didn’t feel the energy rise up from the bottoms of his feet to the top of his head, the electricity from his bass spark against the tips of his fingers when he played. It was the first time he saw a sunset that didn’t make him happy. The orange, the blue, the red for passion that he saw only looked like a fire. The kind of fire that destroyed lives. 

He played hard and fast, and fudged a few notes that were so subtle that it didn’t matter anyway. No one heard it when he messed up. No one heard the words that he wrote. No one knew what they meant anyway. A few moments passed where Pete felt the wisps of existential paranoia creep in, but even that didn’t feel right. He was too tired to feel the surge of discomfort that came with attacks such as those, if that was at all possible. There was a coldness in his bones that he didn’t like- the rattle threw him off. 

That night on stage gave him some perspective that he wasn’t sure what to do with. WHile half of his brain worked furiously to keep on playing and singing and pretend like he was having fun, the other half or so was away. It was the gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe, the tick in his neck, the song stuck in his head and it bothered him that he couldn’t just throw off his dilemma for just another hour more. He was mid battle and mid-chorus when the revelations started. It was a long path and it lead straight down to hell.

Number one: Tour was fun because he was having fun. That’s how most things are. Number two: He wasn’t having fun anymore. He thrashed the strings of his bass and screamed into the mic, but nothing would force a surge of dopamine in him. In fact, it seemed to have almost the opposite effect on him. The more he screamed and played and laughed like he was okay, the worse he felt. He was trying to make himself believe he could live a lie. The only thing he was glad of was that Patrick didn’t notice. That would’ve unglued the band more than they could’ve handled. 

A gust of wind smacked him in the face during the quiet moment of a song he was much too lost to name, and he reached for the mic without a single thought. And with the amount of emotions going through him, he had plenty to say, but nothing came to mind. He’d been spitting out words just to hear the sound of his own voice, since he couldn’t hear anyone else’s, and far past the back of the crowd, a few people walked by. One held up the finger for Patrick to see, while the other kept on walking by. It could’ve been some totally random people, but Pete was delirious. It was the polar opposite of a high, it was the withdrawal. He reached for the mic and pressed his lips against it until he could feel the rumbling of his bass in his teeth. 

“You’re not supposed to love me,” he whispered into the mic. He knew not to scream, for the sound would carry all the way out to the people the sentiment was aimed at regardlessly, and the tone of voice made it sound so much more painful. It was only then that Pete knew for sure who he was talking to, as the black masked and hooded figure stopped dead in his tracks and looked over to Pete. He turned away just in time and continued playing manically, primarily to avoid the eye contact that would bring on more realizations. His past ones were enough. 

Patrick sent him a worried look as he flipped off the other man, likely Frank Iero, and continued to strum his guitar rashly. Pete didn’t reciprocate the look, as though it were a look through his rear view mirror and he was past it already. But like a ghost in the silence, it haunted his aura for the rest of the show. Inescapable. 

~

Pete was, blatantly speaking, a porcupine. In the days and long-lasting confusion that followed, Pete worked up a shell that both kept him away from everything, and kept everything away from him. It was an out of sight, out of mind matter, and the only dilution from his bulletproof plan of procrastination was that he just couldn’t hust his brain up. However, on the inside, he was hurt as ever. He didn’t know why he hurt, aside from a rough understanding of separation anxiety, and he knew not how to make it go away. Some circumstances helped, though. After the one show, the My Chemical Romance bus became very scarce, mainly due to Gerard quickly breaking down. Everyone knew it was bound to happen. 

“Is that why Mikey stopped coming over? I knew Gerard was ill, but I didn’t think he was… that bad,” Joe worried, one afternoon on the bus. Pete hated that part the most. It was less of an area of confinement, and more like a type of cruel and unusual punishment. And sometimes his band mates could be ever so daft. “Or is that not why he stopped coming over…?” Patrick sensed the tension before Pete even worked up something apathetic enough to say to him, and stepped in before things got messy. 

“Why don’t we try and show some respect? Gerard’s going through a whole damn lot right now, and Mikey too. I just think that they’re probably very busy with each other right now-” Frank kicked down the bus door and barreled inwards.

“Where’s Pete?!” he bellowed. Pete shrunk down in his chair like a stone, trying to slip under the table without Frank noticing. He had no such luck. Frank’s dark and ominous eyes narrowed at the sight of Pete, and he dove at him. Everyone made an effort to put an end to the kerfuffle, but only Frank and Pete made it off the bus. Frank rashly ushered him towards a corner of the parking lot where he could likely pitch a fit in solitude. Pete was wearily prepared to hold his own. 

When in that dark corner of the parking lot, suffering under the midday heat, Frank crossed his arms and began. “Alright, let’s talk like adults. What happened with Mikey? What’d you do, Pete? He came to the bus all freaked out and crying- and let me tell you something, Pete, I rarely see Mikey cry. Gerard is out of it and I’m running errands he should be doing as is, and I don’t need Mikey moping around the bus and refusing to get up added to my list of problems! Fix it, damn it! Say you’re sorry, buy him video games, I don’t care! He didn’t even tell me what happened, but whatever you did… Amend it.”

“I don’t know what I did, for crying out loud!” Pete ended his complaint there. Any more words from him and he’d give Frank the whole story, plain as day. Neither of them wanted that. Frank scoffed.

“Yeah, right. Look, dude, I don’t care what it was. You don’t have to tell me. Maybe you broke something of his, maybe you stole his girlfriend, I don’t know! You two are best friends, not ex-friends. It’s better off this way, okay? Just-” Pete couldn’t hold his tongue.

“Mikey and I have been seeing each other.” He let that sink in.

“...Wait, like, seeing each other as in _seeing each other?_ ” Frank took a step back, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“Yes. And he ended things a few days ago. That’s the whole story, plain and fair. I don’t know what his deal is either, so leave me alone.”

“Woah. Does Gerard know?”

“Does Gerard even know his own name?”

“Be nice. He’s going through a rough patch,” Frank warned. Pete didn’t see a reason too, other than Frank was one-hundred percent whoop ass. 

“Well, there. Now you know. I’m going to go now, and you’re going to not bring this up with anyone ever again, got it? Especially Mikey. Bye now,” and Pete walked away. He wished he could leave all of his problems behind like that. 

***

Pete never liked sleeping alone. The bed could get cold, and the sheets that wrapped your felt like a prison. He felt like it made him look lonely. Even with three other guys not very far away, confined to the bus that rumbled on through the night, there was something lonely about it. That loneliness was a different sort of loneliness, the kind that everyone feels at one point or another. What Pete felt was something else altogether. There was a ghost that followed him everywhere, haunting him like he deserved to be punished. There was one in his bed. The lingering warmth where legs used to be. If he stretched out his own, he used to find another a few inches away, warm and pulsing with life. But only coldness awaited him then. 

It was little things like that. Reaching out for a person that wasn’t there anymore. Watching the crowd, expecting to pick somebody out, but there not being anyone for him. A lingering touch, a whispered note that hung in the air conditioning vents until the early a.m., the smell of lust as it coursed over the two in waves. _Pete felt a lump in his throat._ And then there was the look in his eyes, Mikey’s eyes. It was a glitter he never saw in anyone else’s. It was a sparkle that wasn’t the godforsaken sun reflecting off of his irises. Like an extra heartbeat that was beneath the surface, a warm summer evening where the sweat clung to you even after nightfall. It was the look of summer that he held so close to him, so close that Pete could feel it when their chests were pressed together in the dark light. It was the spiderweb that fell behind his eyes, where you could plot little moments out like a map, until you had his life events on your plate in front of you. _Pete couldn’t see the top of his bunk so clearly anymore, it was distorted by tears._ The glimmer in Mikey's eyes that reached from his eyes to Pete’s even when they weren’t touching. Such a spontaneous combustion of feelings in a blink, a shine over his glassy eyes when the time was right, and the backs of his eye lids when he was asleep next to Pete, keeping the bed warm, and making him feel a little less alone. 

Pete began to realize, as he thought over the way Mikey’s eyes made him feel, that the waves of lust were a precursor to everything that summer represents. That little heartbeat that pulsated in his eyes when Mikey looked at him was more than just spirit, and the way that he thought of it was more than poetic retellings. Summer of 2005 was the summer of realizing things, and Pete didn’t like it. Especially when the tears poured out of his own eyes, and he realized once and for all that the shine in Mikey’s eyes was love. 

And in the morning, when he was no longer capable of crying any longer, he vowed never to forget that look. 

~

There were a few days in that last week of tour, where Pete panicked at every intersection he met. If he drove one way, would he never get to say goodbye to Mikey? If he drove the other way, was he really evading the other option? Andy and Patrick pretending they didn’t know what was going on, that they didn’t see the pain behind his eyes. That they didn’t miss the light Pete always produced, even in the darkest nights. Joe gave in to that. He helped things go a little bit more right, from a distance. If he got too close, Pete would push him away, and it would stay like that until he came back to the filthy realization that he, in fact, was falling apart. 

It wasn’t until one of the very last shows of the tour where Pete got his chance. His chance strode down the hallway towards him, head down, probably expecting to make a clean escape before anything could go down hill. That was never the case. Pete quickened his pace, trying to collect himself for whatever lay ahead of him. NO matter the amount of self-preservation he tried to summon, all he came up with was his bottled up emotions bubbling over the edge of the pot. He knew what was coming.

“Mikey-” Mikey kept walking, ignoring Pete as he passed. Pete snapped.

“Fine! Fuck you, then! Maybe I don’t deserve a response, maybe I did something that ticked you off, but for the record I want to know why you’re suddenly pretending that you don’t give a shit! You’re pretending that I don’t matter and you think that by blocking me out everything will be easier for you! And for that I say fuck you! You don’t give a damn about how this makes me feel and after sleeping together for months, I’d say I warrant some sort of goodbye at least!” Pete shouted. Mikey ran back for a quick second and pulled Pete off into a small room that was likely a closet of some sort. Pete didn’t have enough time to figure it out.

“Yes, we did sleep together. For months, that’s correct. And you want to know why I’m mad at you? For fucks sake, Pete. How many other people do you know that enjoy hearing the words ‘Hey, it’s alright, I don’t love you’? Huh?” Mikey hissed. Both could hear footsteps of people passing by, unaware. Pete bit back the insult he had lined up. Mikey hadn’t gone where Pete had expected him to. At all.

“B-but we made a deal! No feelings, nada. You said you could do it, and I believed you!” Pete’s voice cracked. Mikey didn’t look the least bit sympathetic, although, Pete couldn’t see him all that well in the low light. 

“Are you even a human being?” Mikey asked incredulously. Pete was taken aback. “Did you really think that after fucking for months, being confined to each other for that damn long, that feelings wouldn’t appear whether we wanted them to or not? I’m not trying to speak for you, so I’m sorry if it sounds that way. I just figured that maybe after all that time you’d stop believing the lie and start living it instead. I guess I was wrong about you, and that hurt me for a little bit. I guess I’m over it now.” Mikey reached for the door handle, but Pete swatted his hand down.

“You’re mad at me because I don’t love you?” he asked. Mikey was silent. Pete could feel the rush of air as Mikey folded his arms across his chest. 

“I’m mad at you because you think you’re some poetic God, some observant and understanding being who can draw out your whole life story from a fifteen minute talk session, and after months of being with me you never once thought back and said to yourself “this is a bad idea” or “you don’t own your feelings, they own you”. I don’t know whether you ever wanted to love me, if you ever did at all, or if you thought your plan was bulletproof all along. I don’t know how you never stopped to think that I wouldn’t fall in love with you, and we’d make it out unharmed. This was always about you. Always,” Mikey growled. Pete felt his eyes start to well up mid-way through Mikey’s mini speech and after that moment, it was the beginning of a long path of realizations. 

“I’m sorry,” Pete whispered. Mikey didn’t want to hear it, but the choked voice Pete used left him a little disheartened. “I’m sorry I can’t love you, and I know I’m supposed to and maybe I do, but I just- I can’t. There’s so much I should’ve said to you before this got under way, and now it’s too late. Maybe I do love you, but it's too late. It was too late before we began. It was over from the start and I thought you knew that! I am a car crash, Mikey! I can't love someone who wasn't supposed to become more than a phase-” he stopped. Maybe before Mikey looked hurt, but now he looked crushed. Heart broken. 

“A phase?” he asked weakly. Pete gulped. 

“No, that's not- I didn't expect it to last so I said I didn't love you so that I wouldn't hurt when it was over. And-” he stopped again, looking at the tears pouring out of Mikey’s eyes. Pete dropped to the ground, head in his hands and hyperventilating. There they were, the emotions. And they hurt so fucking bad. 

“I do love you, Mikey. It was never supposed to get half this far and-” but Mikey was gone. He looked up to an open door and an empty closet. Pete never even knew if Mikey heard him say it. 

And that was supposed to be the end of it. It all came down to a sad night in a closet, and a few missed words. It always ends in heartbreak, and Pete should have realized that by then.He could write things however he wanted, make it seem perfect and golden, but it never was. Things aren’t perfect. Pete’s ‘thing’ stuck to the back of his throat and balled up his fists and made the tears come when they shouldn’t have. It was a homage to heartbreak, a memento he couldn’t shake off, that one blindsiding piece in the art gallery. It was the memories that always got to him. The “what ifs”, the “i’ll never know”s. That really was supposed to be the way it ended. The final, bloody scene.

Yet when Mikey got a call from a very old number, a lengthy ten years later, he didn’t decline the call immediately. He stared at the number, long since detached from a contact name or anything of the such. He made a face, before picking up the call and bringing the phone to his ear.

“Pete?”


End file.
